Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems are commonly used by today's companies and organizations. IVR systems allow for the automatic handling of many user requests without the costlier involvement of human respondents.
From a user's perspective, interaction with different IVRs is often similar because of the standardization of menu choices and the repeated request for the same information. For example, many IVRs authenticate a user by asking for the user's personal identification number (PIN), mother's maiden name, and/or personal data (e.g., social security number or date of birth). The user may have to go through long-winded, multi-level menus before being able to perform the action that the user wants to perform. Further, the user may not have information requested by the IVR system readily available. The user may also have to repeat information (e.g., difficult to pronounce names or other information) one or more times, and may have to repeat the process numerous times if, for example, the user chooses an incorrect menu choice which leads the user to an undesired part of the IVR system decision tree. This inconvenience can be made worse when a user has a foreign accent and the IVR system cannot recognize or decipher the foreign accent.
Therefore, there remains a need to improve the interaction between a user and an IVR system.